India Halts Plan for Engineered Eggplant

The government's move on Tuesday overturned an earlier decision by a government committee, which in October had approved the commercialization of Bt Brinjal, the eggplant named after its genetic modification. The government had said at the time that it would make a final decision only after consultations with farmers, consumers, scientists and state governments.

Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister, said Tuesday that "a moratorium on the release" of the eggplant has been imposed until "independent scientific studies establish, to the satisfaction of both the public and professionals, the safety of the product from the point of view of its long-term impact on human health and environment."

The halt on the prospect of commercial farming of genetically modified eggplant won't stop the use of biotechnology in the country's agricultural sector, Mr. Ramesh added. Cotton is the only genetically modified crop commercially cultivated in India, one of 25 countries growing such crops. The eggplant would have been India's first genetically modified food crop—and the world's first commercially cultivated genetically modified vegetable.

India's major eggplant-growing states, along with environmentalists and consumer-health activists, were apprehensive that the commercial farming of the eggplant would adversely affect human health, the environment and the existing natural variety of eggplant in India.